Defending Syria Withdrawal, Trump Says U.S. Should Not Be ‘Policeman of the Middle East’

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Thursday defended his plan to withdraw American troops from Syria against mounting criticism from Republicans and Democrats and concerns from his military and diplomatic advisers who were caught off guard by his abrupt announcement a day earlier.

“Getting out of Syria was no surprise,” Mr. Trump wrote in one of a series of Twitter posts on Thursday morning. He presented a string of justifications for his decision, including supportive quotes from a few who applauded his agenda.

The president also pushed back against reports — which he derided as “Fake News” — that the American military exit from Syria would advance Russian and Iranian foreign policy objectives. In Moscow, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said he supported the plan and called it “the right decision.”

Does the USA want to be the Policeman of the Middle East, getting NOTHING but spending precious lives and trillions of dollars protecting others who, in almost all cases, do not appreciate what we are doing? Do we want to be there forever? Time for others to finally fight.....

....Russia, Iran, Syria & many others are not happy about the U.S. leaving, despite what the Fake News says, because now they will have to fight ISIS and others, who they hate, without us. I am building by far the most powerful military in the world. ISIS hits us they are doomed!

There were still few — if any — specifics available about how the United States military would accomplish the logistical undertaking of withdrawing 2,000 troops amid Syria’s continuing seven-year civil war and remaining pockets of Islamic State fighters.

In what appeared to be an attempt to assure critics that pulling out was the correct course and that the Islamic State was no longer a threat to Americans, Mr. Trump tweeted, “I am building by far the most powerful military in the world. ISIS hits us they are doomed!”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the president’s decision was made with “lots of consultation between all the senior-level officials, including myself.”

In an interview Thursday with Laura Ingraham, a Fox News host, Mr. Pompeo suggested that the Islamic State was not completely defeated and said America’s main mission in Syria was to “take down” the Islamic State caliphate. “That is at the very tail end of completion,” he said.

Mr. Pompeo also said that the United States plans to continue fighting terrorism, including ISIS, “whether it stems from Syria or other places.”

American troops have been on the ground in Syria since 2015, working with a global coalition to defeat the Islamic State, a terrorist group that had claimed large parts of Iraq and Syria as its self-proclaimed caliphate.

Syria’s civil war has pitted forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria against multiple but disparate rebel groups that oppose him. It also gave rise to efforts by Syria’s ethnic Kurdish minority to carve out its own territory in Syria’s north, connected to a similar autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

The United States and Russia both share the stated goal of defeating the Islamic State, but they are divided in their support of the groups fighting the civil war.

The United States has sided with the Kurds and Sunni Arab rebels that are fighting the Islamic State and other jihadist groups. Russia is a longtime ally of Syria and a continued benefactor of Mr. Assad, an Alawite whose religion is linked to Shiism. Iranian troops and Shiite militias also support Mr. Assad.

An American troop withdrawal would be expected to remove key support for the Kurdish opposition in its fight against Mr. Assad’s government and bolster Russian and Iranian influence across Syria.